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Book review: Gender and humour: interdisciplinary and international perspectives

Faculty Advisor

Date

2015

Keywords

humour, gender, humour studies, feminist humour studies, critical humour studies

Abstract (summary)

The advent and growth of feminist movements and theories during the 20th century, which foregrounded gender as an essential aspect of human identity, called for unprecedented attention to gender itself as well as its relation to other social systems and structures, including language. Ever since, a gradually increasing number of scholars from various disciplines have studied the nexus of gender and humour. The resulting body of research, due to its interdisciplinarity, is necessarily extensive and includes a wide range of topics and research methods. However, the extent of this research is barely comparable to the bulk of gender studies, which normally concern gender in relation to the serious. This remarkable imbalance deserves attention. Two probable reasons come to mind: one is the long-standing and general ambivalence academics have had about humour as a serious scholarly topic (see Davis 1995; Kuipers 2008); the other, at least for feminist studies of humour, is the problematic tradition of feminism and feminists being the object of ridicule by mainstream media (Ferree 2004). Therefore, Chiaro & Baccolini’s edited volume is a fortunate and welcome addition to the field.

Publication Information

Abedinifard, Mostafa. Review of Gender and Humour: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives edited by D. Chiaro and R. Baccolini, European Journal of Humour Research, vol. 3, issue 4, 2015, pp. 92-95. doi: 10.7592/EJHR2015.3.4.90.XXX

Notes

Item Type

Review

Language

English

Rights

All Rights Reserved